‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ and Dealing With Superhero Burnout

Lowlife superheroes I can believe in

By Daniel Ford

Marvel recently released its second trailer for the upcoming summer blockbuster “Guardians of the Galaxy.”

It actually looks and feels like what a summer blockbuster should be.

Here’s the trailer:

Wonderful. I watch it twice a day.

I’ve complained recently to my nerdery that superhero movies are becoming brooding pieces of rubbish. Batman movies can get away with being über dark and brooding because it’s intrinsic to that character. Peter Parker, however, shouldn’t be so tormented. He loves being a superhero as much as Tony Stark loves being Iron Man (and an alcoholic womanizer). Why does he need to fight off 2,000 CGI under-developed villains while scowling under his Spidey mask?

Superhero movies are quickly becoming the content marketing of the film world. They look slick and pretend to have a story written by actual humans, but in the end they aren’t reflective of anything other than some douchebag advertiser’s overdeveloped sense of worth. The new Spiderman movies play like an extended Taco Bell commercial. Like content marketing, no amount of flash or promises of “real, honest, and meaty content” is going to distract people from believing that you’re trying to sell them total bullshit. Wait, that’s not true because these movies make gobs of money. Damn it.

Anyway, “The Avengers” was clever and fun because of its cast and quality directing by Joss Whedon, but do you remember anything about that movie? Maybe I’m in the minority here, but I don’t think that’s as rewatchable a movie as, say, “Superman II” or the first “Iron Man.” Every movie has to be a set up for the next movie, the next ad campaign, the next press conference. There’s only so much plot and character you can develop before you have to shoehorn your script into the next project.

I let “Man of Steel” off the hook, but that’s because I’m a huge Superman homer and the movie at least tried to touch on themes like alienation, “otherness,” and finding your way in the world. Superman may have brooded in the beginning, but the guy smiles often later on in the film because he’s fucking Superman! He’s got a pulse, which is more than I can say for a lot of superhero movies of late. The director can’t name a movie to save his life, but that’s a topic for another day.

This is turning into a rant and I don’t want it to be. Grantland’s Mark Harris—one of my favorite entertainment writers—published a piece today that asks, “Are We at Peak Superhero?” Harris points out that comic book readers are a small demographic that studios have mined expertly for years now (none moreso than Marvel, he says), but wonders whether we’re in the middle of a boom or at the end of a bubble? I’m inclined to believe the latter, but that’s not to say I want the genre to go away anytime soon. Because I like summer movies. I like superhero movies. I just want them to be done better.

Which is why I’m all in on “Guardians of the Galaxy.”

It didn’t take much to be honest.

Seedy underworld.? Check. Killer soundtrack (based on the two songs featured in the trailers)? Check. Wise-cracking anti-heroes? Check. Chris Pratt from “Parks and Recreation”? Check.

Brooding clearly shouldn’t be an issue in this movie. In fact, I’m hoping this turns out to be a slightly more serious version of Mel Brooks’ “Spaceballs.” I can’t be the only one that thinks that this band of criminal heroes would be right at home on Lonestar’s Eagle 5, right?

I’ve never read any of the “Guardians of the Galaxy” books and don’t intend to before the movie comes out (I’ve already made that pop culture mistake with George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice series). I reached out to a friend of mine from high school who knows more about the comic than I do who said that the trailer gets it right. “These people aren't heroes,” Christopher Morse, an actor, writer, and director, as well as the host of the podcast “Supervillain Corner," told me.” “They're a bunch of assholes who are in the right place and time, and are just the tiniest bit more likely to do the 'right' thing than otherwise.”

I also reached out to the New England Comics store in Cambridge, Mass., to find out if the comic was generating any extra buzz because of the film’s release. I talked to a wonderfully spirited woman named Hanna who told me that the reason Marvel has been so good at adapting its comics to the big screen—besides the quality acting, directing, and special effects—is that it makes movies that are accessible to comic book and non-comic book fans.

“We had a lot of people come in after seeing ‘The Avengers' asking, ‘Hey, who is that purple guy at the end of the film?’” She said. “People started reading Infinity Gaunlet, which eventually led readers to Guardians of the Galaxy.”

Hanna also told me that she expects more people will come into the store after the movie because moviegoers will want all the backstory and anticipate how “Guardians” will tie in with the next “Avengers” movies.

So, I hope that this movie isn’t an hours-long melody of CGI crap with a dash of Chris Pratt wit and crotch-grabbing raccoon awesomeness mixed in. I hope I’m one of those people that heads directly to my local comic book store after the seeing the film to buy as many issues of Guardians of the Galaxy as possible. I hope it’s a lot like the latest “Godzilla” movie, which I found refreshing and something I might actually rewatch eventually. However, Marvel is all about their long-term plan, so I’m trying to temper my emotions.

I’ll just have this song on repeat until the movie comes out.

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Why Aren’t There More Brainy Heroines In Sci-Fi?

Brave New Girls

Guest post by sci-fi author Mary Fan

That’s a question that’s been bugging me since I was the nerdy girl with the giant chemistry textbook and the Science Olympiad trophy. Oh, there are tech-y girls in sci-fi, but they’re either quirky sidekicks, impossibly sexy love interests, or blink-and-you-miss-them cameo figures.

Meanwhile, in the real world, women comprise only 26 percent of workers in the STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). With the overall workforce split pretty much 50/50 between men and women, that percentage should be a lot higher.

Lingering gender stereotypes mean that girls don’t have many tech-savvy role models in fiction to look up to. The only one I can think of at the moment is Cinder, a fearless 16-year-old mechanic, from the Lunar Chronicles. And even she is insecure about her job and only took it because the wicked stepmother figure in this Cinderella retelling made her. I guess we have Kaylee from the television show “Firefly” and Skye from “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.,” but even they’re relegated to sidekick roles next to the shows’ central heroes.

While I’m sure there are examples out there of young women in the STEM fields starring in sci-fi tales, the fact remains that many more are still shunted to the side. Which is why I’m partnering with fellow sci-fi author Paige Daniels (of the Non-Compliance cyberpunk trilogy) to help change that. We’re putting together an anthology of YA sci-fi tales starring girls with a knack for the STEM subjects—programmers, mechanics, scientists, and more—called Brave New Girls. All revenues from this anthology will be donated to a Society of Women Engineers scholarship fund, which helps girls seeking to go into the STEM fields get the education they need.

Paige and I, in addition to contributing stories of our own, will be indie publishing the anthology, with the goal of getting it out in summer 2015. We’re running a Kickstarter this summer to raise money for professional editing, formatting, and artwork. And we’re currently looking for submissions, so if this sounds like something you or someone you know have written or are interested in writing about, check out our website: http://bravenewgirls.weebly.com. Submissions are open until November 15.

Since we’re donating the money from sales, we can’t offer payment, but we will be sending each author whose story is selected a paperback copy. And, of course, our gratitude. The two of us will be contributing stories of our own, and mine will feature the titular heroine from my Jane Colt space opera/cyberpunk series as a teenager.

Though the world has come a long way since the days when women were told math would harm their mental health, we’ve still got a ways to go. This one little anthology won’t change the world, but it’s a start.

To learn more about Brave New Girls, check out the official website.

To find out more about Mary Fan and her work,check out her official website, like her Facebook page, or follow her on Twitter @AstralColt.

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Manhattan Moments: 7 Photos of New York City That Define Me

Cristina Cianci, Daniel Ford, and Stephanie Schaefer frolicking in New York City.

By Cristina Cianci

Born on Staten Island + raised in New Jersey + my love of the shore, loud talking with hand gestures, pasta (and my ability to eat it three times a day) = I proudly wear the Italian American badge on my sleeve.

Living in Manhattan during college was a whole other ball game. From thee hidden treasures I found and made my own to the spots I frequented as a kid, these are the seven I hold close to my heart and badge.

The Brooklyn Bridge

Day or night, rain or shine.

The Bethesda Fountain in Central Park

For those times you wish you were in Europe, but have to settle for Central Park.

This View From My Friend’s Roof in Midtown Manhattan

Oh, hello.

Madison Square Garden

The best overpriced beer and hot dogs.

Little Italy

For some historic Cianci stomping ground and really good cannolis.

Caffe Roma

See previous description.

The New York Public Library

For some light reading and escaping the hustle and bustle.

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How My Older Brother Made Me A Lifelong Reader

Readers with wheels. My older brother Tom and I following the Hartford Half Marathon in 2010.

By Daniel Ford

My older brother Tom is the smartest person I know.

(Okay, his wife is probably even smarter, but I’ve known Tom the longest, so he wins).

I loved the fact that he was smart when I was growing up. It made me want to be smart. It made me want to read a book at the breakfast table like he did every morning. His example made me want to do my homework right when I got home and strive to do the best I could do in school.

I remember walking into his room as a kid—always when he was out of the house because I was too afraid to ask him to hang out—and marvel at all the cool stuff he had. His Don Mattingly and Wade Boggs baseball figurines, NFL gridiron comforter, his original Nintendo. It was a nerd nirvana!

More importantly, Tom always had a ton of books arranged beautifully on his bookshelf. I didn’t steal them back then because I was still reading illustrated versions of Robin Hood and Treasure Island, The Boxcar Children, and any "Star Wars" novel I could get my hands on. I loved knowing his weightier books were there and he had either read them or was planning on reading them. I would go back to my own room and rearrange my less impressive array of titles on my bookshelf so that each shelf started with the tallest book and ended with the shortest, just like my older brother did.

Thanks to my older brother, this is what my life looks like.

I read everything back then, but I hadn’t had the moment. You know the moment I’m talking about. It's the moment when someone puts a book in your hands and it hits your mind like a thunderbolt and completely changes the direction of your life.

Tom put several books in my hands one Christmas and I’ve haven’t been the same since. He wordlessly handed me a superbly wrapped present. The box was heavy. Since I was only reading thin paperbacks at that point, I didn’t know that meant it could only contain one thing. Books. Heavy, beautiful books.

Inside the box were three books that transformed me from a reader to a reader: To Kill a Mockingbird, 1984, and John Irving’s The World According to Garp.

I devoured the first two in short order. My young mind was blown that those two masterpieces came out of someone’s pen. People actually wrote like this? You mean there was more to literature than just pulpy fiction and sci-fi adventures?

Even if I had been a stronger reader at that point, nothing would have prepared me for the opening line to Irving’s classic novel:

“Garp’s mother, Jenny Fields, was arrested in Boston in 1942 for wounding a man in a movie theater.”

Whoa. 

Heavy stuff for a kid who was just trying to survive middle school!

When Tom went to college, I spent a lot of time raiding his bookshelf (and his music collection). He had already made the jump to American history tomes that were way over my head at the time, but which I attempted to plow through all the same. I’m pretty sure I still have his copy of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States that I stole back in high school (and finally finished as a college sophomore). He moved out after graduating and took all his books with him, but the bookshelf stayed behind. I relentlessly set out to fill it after immediately moving into his old room.

Me holding said copy of A People's History of the United States on a trip to Yankee Stadium.

I had some help thanks to my high school English teacher Pamela Hayward, who consistently handed me books like Crazy in Alabama, Snow Falling on Cedars, and As I Lay Dying, in addition to the required reading for AP English. But the constant was my older brother. Every Christmas, there would be more books. Or gift cards with recommendations attached. Or a loan from his precious collection.

Now, our bookcases are essentially lending libraries between the two of us. He has books on his shelf that I’ve loaned him without having read them, and vice versa. He likes to kid and say that a book has to be on his shelf for 10 years before he reads it (except for Eric Foner’s Reconstruction, which he will never read). If I can’t find a book in my collection, odds are he has it. Some of the best moments of our bonding weekends are spent talking about all the books we have yet to read in front of one of his bookcases (I usually end up taking one or two home with me every time).

His early example also inspires me to buy books for his three kids—as well as all my other nieces and nephews—for birthdays and Christmas. Toys are fleeting and end up as yard sale fodder. Books are a gateway to creativity, curiosity, and fun! I’ll be getting them books even when they think I’m the lame uncle who gives books (including my own someday…don’t judge me) as gifts, because that’s what I learned from my older brother. It has the added bonus of allowing me to rediscover titles from my youth and keep current with today’s children’s literature.

My nephew Jack (top photo) and my niece Katie giving me hope for future readers.

Tom is now a principal at an elementary school in Connecticut, where he’s inspiring a new generation of young minds.

I follow his Twitter account and couldn’t be prouder when I see something like:

Dr. Veronesi read to both kindergarten classes this morning for Read Across America Day! @KathyVeronesi#rsd13ctpic.twitter.com/ehKB3lFLSI

— Thomas D. Ford (@TFord_LymanCT) February 28, 2014

I sleep well knowing the next generation of readers is in good hands.

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Why I Wanted To Be A Writer: Dave Pezza

This is the debut of a series featuring how all of us at Writer's Bone got our starts. Look for other tales from the crew in the near future.

I look nothing like David Foster Wallace.

By Dave Pezza

At one point in college I realized that writing was something I thoroughly enjoyed, and, quite frankly, I was good at it.

That realization mixed with the remarkable idea that writing is timeless. When you write your mind enters a timeless medium. The fact that the late David Foster Wallace can still shares his thoughts with me in an intellectual and significant way through his words absolutely amazes me.

Ultimately, I wanted to be a writer because I want to converse with others today, five years from now, 100 years from now about my thoughts and ideas. Yes, it is selfish and self-centered in many ways. But ideas shape and reshape our entire world, and how can you get them to work if no one can see them?

If I Had to Choose A Favorite Book With A Gun to My Head:

Favorite Line From Something I've Written:

The second reason was Cindy’s looks. She was not beautiful or classically pretty, rather Cindy was attractive. She had the appropriate curves and tight skin that a twenty-something girl usually has. She had light red hair with few freckles to match, but a pair of emerald eyes Arthur never failed to make note of. She played lacrosse in high school and in college, so she retained much of her former athletic body. She kept her nails short and painted dark brown, changed her hair style every couple of months, and wore clothes that accentuated her toned legs and busty chest. She wore high heels every day and hiked her skirt up just enough to give her 5’3 frame all the legs and height she could muster. All of this was enough to turn the head of every cubicle working salesman who she passed; their cheap suit pants and tight white underwear getting tighter and hotter as her sweet flowery perfume saturated the corridor halls with a carpet bomb of aphrodisiac.”

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Fred Dekker and Shane Black: The Script Writing Dynamic Duo

The Monster Squad!

By Sean Tuohy

Partnerships are not an easy thing (Dammit Dan, I said no ice in my scotch! What am I paying you for?).

It takes hard work, a shared passion, and a willingness to shrink your ego. There are plenty of partners that have never broken up, such as Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson, Batman and Robin, and Häagen and Dazs (who I assume are cold, delicious people). On the other hand, sometimes partners stop being partners, for instance Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, The Beatles, and most recently and, perhaps most heartbreakingly, the Jonas Brothers.

One partnership I never truly understood was between screenwriters Fred Dekker and Shane Black. Two friends who shared a passion for movies broke into filmmaking together and even penned some movies as a screenwriting duo. However, their careers went in two very different directions. Black and Dekker (haha, get it?) met at film school and even lived together for a while. They wrote "The Monster Squad" together and then penned the still unproduced "Shadow Company" before they kind of broke up. How do two men who share the same love and same career goals go two different ways in life?

Let's take a look quick at the work that these two did together:

“The Monster Squad”

This movie bleeds 1980s. Just look at the hairstyles, the Walkmans, and the music cues. The movie is “The Goonies” except with monsters such as wolf man, vampires, and the living dead. Also, the kids shoot guns and swear unlike the PG-rated “The Goonies.” Black co-wrote the movie while Dekker directed. The movie sank like a stone. Why? Well, it was a hard movie to sell. It's too complex for a child to understand and too simple for an adult, so it got stuck in this weird middle ground. It would take years for the movie to find the right crowd.

“Shadow Company”

After this the pair wrote “Shadow Company” (Black reused the name for the evil group of drug smuggling commandos in “Lethal Weapon”), which was another 1980s-tastic monster flick. The movie told the tale of Vietnam vets that could not be killed. It was “Night of The Living Dead” meets “The Dirty Dozen.” Although the script was never made into a movie, it is still a ton of fun, and worth reading.

However, after that the two never worked together again. Why? I have no idea. I am going to take a guess and say that by the 1990s Shane Black was heating up in Hollywood while Dekker’s was cooling off. I don’t know. Maybe they stayed friends, but professionally parted ways.

Either way, it’s worth looking at both their separate careers:

Shane Black

Shane Black hit the scene hard before he was 22 years old. His spec script “Lethal Weapon” was turned in to a surprise blockbuster that spawned three sequels. After this his script for "The Last Boy Scout" was bought for an unheard of $1.5 million dollars—a record that was soon broken by his sale of “The Long Kiss Goodnight” for $4 million dollars in 1994. Black went into a sort of “retirement” during which he worked behind the scenes doing uncredited rewrite work. Then, after a nearly 10-year absence, Black sprang back into action with “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,” the movie that helped bring Robert Downey Jr.'s career back to life and got him the part of “Iron Man.” The movie was not a smash hit, but it did win the hearts of critics and has a great indie fan base. Black wasn’t done. After helping write the “Iron Man” films, he was asked to direct “Iron Man 3,” which turned out to be the highest grossing movie of 2013. All in all, not bad.

Fred Dekker

Fred Dekker came on to the scene with less of splash. He wrote the script for cult horror hit “House.” With this under his belt, Dekker was able to produce "Night of the Creeps," a much-loved horror film that failed at the box office. After the failure of “The Monster Squad” (his collaboration with Black) and two crashes under his belt, he was given the chance to direct the third installment of the “Robocop” series. Sounds great, right? Not so much. Peter Weller, who played Robocop, was not going to be in the film and the studio gave Dekker a shoe string budget. The movie crashed and burned and essentially killed Dekker's career. Dekker did some writing work here and there, but for the most part was shunned from Hollywood. Looking back, he did a lot with little and had some of the most original ideas in Hollywood. “Robocop 3” is a bad movie, but you can see that they did the best they could with what they had. In the end, Hollywood chewed Fred Dekker and then spat him out.

* * *

I always wonder how these two former partners and friends look at one another. You have Shane Black, Hollywood mega star, on one hand and then you have Fred Dekker, cult movie maker and redheaded stepchild of Hollywood on the other. Do they still talk? I mean, can you maintain a friendship with someone when their success so outweighs your own? Does Dekker look at Black with envy? Does Black look at Dekker with pity? I wish I knew how these two interacted now. Do they still talk like they did in the old days or are they no longer buddies? I may need to write a movie about them to figure it all out.

Maybe they will have a “reunion script” in the future. That would be awesome to see these two friends come together for one final “Hoorah!” Will it happen? Who knows, but I know this it better happen before the Jonas Brothers get back together.

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Why the 'How I Met Your Mother' Finale Wasn't the 'Best Burger in New York City'

The "How I Met Your Mother" finale was the opposite of this moment.

By Stephanie Schaefer

I remember watching the series premiere of “How I Met Your Mother” when I was sophomore in high school. It was the perfect sitcom to fill the void left by the end of my favorite show “Friends,” provide distraction from my math homework, and entertain a 15-year-old girl stuck in the suburbs without a driver’s license. The truth is, at that point, I didn’t have a great deal in common with the show’s characters. I had never been in love and the thought of settling down seemed like a continent away, but I enjoyed the premise nonetheless. After all, isn’t that what sitcoms are for? To allow us to escape, dream, and laugh?

As I watched the crew gathering at MacLaren’s Pub each week, I envisioned what it would be like to be a 20-something gallivanting in New York City, dating eligible bachelors, and chasing an exciting journalism career like Robin. Back in 2005, I wanted the happily ever after between Robin and Ted. After all, I was young, naïve, and didn’t know anything about love.

A lot has changed in the past nine years since the pilot episode. In fact, after graduating college I did end up moving to Manhattan where I got my first taste of a journalism career. I soon related to the main characters more than ever. There were moments I shamelessly cried on a crowded subway like Robin, wondered if I’d ever find lasting love like Ted, and debated if I should stick to my career dreams or find a more financially stable job like Marshall.

Many of the creative and well-written early episodes resonated with me. Whenever the city got me down, I would retreat to my closet-sized room and watch reruns. I remember one episode that hit the nail on the head. Marshall and the gang go on the hunt for the “best burger in New York City.” Like most of the show’s iconic symbolisms, the burger meant more than just a meal. Marshall recalls the time when he first moved to the city eight years prior and tasted a bite of heaven in a tiny burger joint. Eating that delectable burger once again would make Marshall feel okay about putting his dreams of becoming an environmental lawyer on hold—especially when he disappointedly realizes that the location of the eatery had turned into Goliath National Bank (the corporation that recently offered him a job). However, in true “How I Met Your Mother” fashion, the five best friends finally taste that perfect burger after a long search in one of the most memorable moments of season four.

The gang in more hilarious times.

Similar to the HIMYM crew, in the midst of the confusion, heartbreak, and soul searching in New York, I did experience the moments that made me feel alive and as on top of the world as someone tasting the best burger they’ve ever had. Like Lilly, Marshall, Ted, Robin, and Barney, I met my friends at Irish bars after work, enjoyed amazing food, and even fell genuinely in love.

So kids, you may be wondering how I felt about the finale. I could dive into every flaw and tear the sitcom’s ending apart like many critics. Honestly, that was my original plan for this piece. However, after giving myself a few days to process the much-talked-about ending, I decided to take a slightly different route.

Like most HIMYM fans my age, I’ve grown up a lot in the past nine years. But while most of us gained maturity and insight over the near-decade, it seems as if the once beloved sitcom and its characters seemed to become less mature and more one-dimensional—which can be blamed on sloppy writing, poor character development, or failed attempts at humor.

The finale and episodes leading up to this big moment only increased my frustrations with the characters and their total lack of growth. Essentially, they were right back where they started, but we, as viewers, were not. Robin and Barney divorce because the two weren’t mature enough to handle Robin’s work schedule. Barney immaturely recreates his chauvinistic playbook and impregnates a one-night stand. And perhaps in the most frat-boy move of the show, instead of revealing her name, Bays and Thomas call the mother of Barney’s daughter “31” — as in the 31st woman he’d slept with that month. Hmmm, I wonder what will happen with Barney sits down to tell his daughter the story of how he met her mother…

What did change toward the end of the series, however, was the magic of the first few seasons. Anyone who’s watched the sitcom religiously knows how special the beginning of the series was. If you would have told 15-year-old me that future Ted Mosby shows up with a blue French horn at Robin’s doorstep to win her back once again, I would have thought it was romantic. But now I know that if you love someone – I mean truly, deeply, and unconditionally love someone – then you don’t make any excuses not to be with them, which is the main problem I have with the Ted/Robin courtship. When you know that you want to, or at least hope to, be with someone forever you do things that may seem illogical—like give up a judgeship so your wife can live her dream in Italy (à la Marshall), or, in Ted’s case with Tracy McConnell, cancel your plans to move to Chicago at the last minute.

Taken away in the worst way possible...

Throughout the past nine seasons this “I can’t live without you” mentality was never the case for Ted and Robin, particularly on Robin’s part, but they’re both to blame. The timing between them was always off. Either Robin didn’t want a commitment or was “too busy” at work or Ted was chasing other women or Robin was preoccupied falling in love with shallow and sexist Barney, etc. Bottom line, they never fought for each other. They only ended up together in the very end when it was convenient for writers who had grown too lazy and too reluctant to change their original plan.

But, you know what Bays and Thomas? Love doesn’t always mean convenience. Love, although at times messy, means sacrifice, commitment and compromise. It’s finding a way to greet your spouse at the airport even when it’s snowing, like Marshall did for Lilly. And, most importantly, it’s staying by someone’s bedside when they're sick like Ted did for Tracy. Ultimately, love means more than stealing a somewhat superficial (yes, I said it) blue French horn.

Like many “How I Met Your Mother” fans I was disappointed by the lukewarm ending—a conclusion that didn’t allow me to escape, dream, and laugh quite like I did while watching the show as a teenager. All and all, I hoped the finale would make a return to the sitcom's initial magic and leave me satisfied like eating the best burger in New York.

However, all I found was a Goliath National Bank.

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Song Writing 101: Coffee and Lyrics

By Anton Laplume

Song writing.

Song writing for me is the equivalent of writing in your diary or journal. It’s a way to document a certain frame of mind of when a song is written. Expressing your feelings towards any given situation. Whether it’s love lost, love gained, being broke or having an excess amount of money, the separation of those you grew up with designated by life’s process, or the new bonds you form in your progression through this crazy world, there’s plenty of inspiration to grab from.

Sometimes it comes in the form of just music without lyrics because sometimes just the music is enough to get the point across. Other times the music is simply two or three chords but the lyrics have a much deeper meaning. That’s the great thing about music and art in general, there are options, and so many different ways to explore them; and beyond the art, there’s a discipline gained from working within certain creative boundaries to express concepts that are seemingly untethered by logic.

However, everyone has their process.

For me, it usually starts off with a large cup of coffee and some kind of turbulence in my life. When something happens, either good or bad, that kind of rearranges my thought process and has me questioning the way I’ve been doing things, I’ll hide out in the organized chaos of my work space and just start to play. As the playing continues, a vocal concept will kind of just come to fruition and before I know it, there’s a concept for a verse or chorus.

Now we come to the lyrics (entering large cup of coffee), which can be a frustrating process. As I would imagine it for most writers, I am very particular about the words I use. From the amount of syllables a word may have, to the way it flows with the surrounding words. What kind of rhyming scheme do I want (If any at all)?. What part of the beat am I placing a word on? And how do I want to finish a phrase? Both rhythmically and harmonically speaking. That’s where those creative boundaries come into play.

The following is usually the final part of the skeleton and the bane of my existence… the bridge. The bridge of any song generally comes in a little more than half way through and offers a bit of relief or change from the songs main idea (verses and choruses). When I write a bridge, I’ll try to change the key center of the song, maybe change up the rhythmic pattern a bit, which can be difficult at times. The reason being, is that sometimes you’re just not hearing a change or a new section to add. Maybe you’re having a hard time coming up with a smooth transition (once again, those creative boundaries). And it’s okay to not have a bridge sometimes, but it is important as a musician to challenge yourself to come up with an idea, even if you’re not particularly hearing one.

That’s where the discipline comes into play. Because to just abandoned the bridge because of the lack of ideas is not only preventing the possibility of a great concept, but also denying yourself a process of learning which can only benefit you. Either way, a lot of the time this ends up being the downfall to a lot of my material. Halting the process of writing to the point where the song is just another unfinished idea in the musical wasteland of my brain.

But in the event that I do successfully finish the songs structure, I will then introduce it to whoever I am playing with, and we add on the final touches to make the song complete. For me, once a song is finished, nothing gives me a greater sense of accomplishment or feeling of relief. At least for a short period of time, then I have to start the whole process over again.

The beauty of whole thing is that every time it’s a little different, and every time, the end result is just as satisfying.

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Sylvester Stallone: The Forgotten American Writer

Sylvester Stallone

By Sean Tuohy

Before his name was instantly recognizes all over the world, before he was a pop culture icon, before all the fame and glory, Sylvester Stallone was hunched over a pad of paper with a pen in hand trying to create a story.

Like many struggling artists, he had the talent and the drive and was just trying to make a buck. We all forget that Sylvester Stallone is a writer and an incredibly underrated one at that. He has 27 accredited scripts to his name and several of those are considered American classics. Screenwriters never get fame or glory. At best, they get a "good job" and then are left alone to create another story. If you look past the action movie star image you will find that Stallone is no different than any other writer. He’s stuck in a room trying to create something from nothing.

So let’s take a moment then to appreciate Stallone the writer.

“Rocky”

Rocky is considered by many to be one of the best made sports movies ever made. Stallone wrote this movie when he was nearly broke and struggling to make it as an actor. He knew that he had a great idea for a story within his own life. He wanted to write about a talented actor trying to make it, with one shot at the big time. The storyteller within Stallone told him no one would empathize with a movie about an actor trying to make it, so he switched it to the story of a boxer.

Bingo!

If you look at the script for Rocky, you find a well-crafted story that shows the rise of a troubled character trying to overcome the odds. Each character in the movie has flaws and internal conflicts, and overall are all well-developed characters. The monologue in “Rocky” where Rocky tells Adrian his fears and doubts before the big fight is a wonderfully honest portrait of a young artist on the brink of success (the above clip with his trainer Mickey ain’t bad neither). People tend to forget that Rocky does not win the match in the movie. After a close fight, he barely loses to Apollo Creed. Only a true writer would look at a story about boxer and say “He needs to lose the match for the sake of the character and the story.” Rocky's story is relatable, timeless, and always heartwarming.

The John Rambo Series

Stallone was not the creator of John Rambo—that was in fact the talented David Morrell—but he did bring him to life on the big screen. He co-wrote the first three movies (“First Blood,” “Rambo: First Blood Part II,” and “Rambo III”) and he was the sole writer of the fourth and final in the series, “Rambo.” Although I love the entire Rambo series, the fourth installment of the series has always stuck out to me the most. Although the plot seems very basic—Rambo saves hostages from a hostile country—it solely exists to move the action. When you look at the story developing within Rambo, there is so much more to find. Rambo is a man who hates who he is, and has never really came to peace with what he was made to do. By the end of the story, Rambo has been able to confront who he is enough to begin to recover and allow himself the peace to like himself again.

“Poe”

Sadly, I don't think this movie will ever be made. I have a feeling people would scoff at the idea of an “action star” making a bio pic. However, if it is ever made in to a movie I will be the first in line to see it. If I have to I will elbow an old man out of the way to get that ticket. I was lucky enough to find the script for Poe, which Stallone had penned years ago and had planned to make himself, but sadly, like so many movies, it fell apart and the story was shelved.

The movie was about famed American writer Edgar Allan Poe. Stallone was able to approach Poe as a tragic and tortured soul that had an amazing talent for writing but let his inner demons get in the way. Instead of your typical biopic, which tends to make their subjects two dimensional, Stallone actually was able to bring Poe to life in his screenplay.

It is hard to see Stallone as a “normal person” because he is, after all, Sylvester Stallone. However, at his core, he is a writer and actor who is just trying to share his stories. I like to believe that even someone like him, who has experienced such success, at one time or another felt the same self-doubt, fear, and frustration that all writers feel as they try to sort out the mess of ideas swimming around their head into a coherent story.

For more essays, check out our full archive. 

Refilling the Treasure Chest: How I Moved On After I Was Robbed of My Writing

By Lindsey Wojcik

Who steals a jump drive?

Better yet, what motivates someone to steal an item that's relatively cheap to purchase at any office supply store?

I often obsess over what plausible answers to these questions would be because four years ago my jump drive and laptop—both of which contained my entire college portfolio, among other valuable items. My prized writer possessions were stolen from me by faceless, unknown person or persons who burglarized my New York City apartment—an apartment in a new neighborhood that I had just moved into three weeks prior. I was saved from the frightening experience of a home invasion, however, losing everything I had written—digitally, at least, published and unpublished—was, in some ways, more frightening.

I was a recent college graduate chasing an editorial career in the big city, miles away from home, and my entire body of work was taken from me. I felt helpless and much like Carrie Bradshaw when her computer crashed (as someone who had recently moved to New York City, I was also a “Sex and the City” addict). “What if everything I’ve ever written is gone?” Carrie ponders. “When’s the last time you backed up?” Miranda asks. I thought I was the anti-Carrie by backing up my work by using a jump drive. As it turns out, it didn’t matter.

Again, I have to ask: Who steals a jump drive?!

I too wondered if all was lost, so after experiencing the five stages of grief, I began a mental checklist of the important work that my stolen technology contained. Every single thing I ever wrote for my university's student newspaper—where I worked for three years, eventually becoming editor in chief—came to mind. Was that all erased?

Thankfully, the journalism department at my alma mater required a portfolio to graduate. That lovely black portfolio with hard copies of only some of my standout pieces was safely nestled near the crime scene. All was not lost. Although it felt like it because, with the exception of those few printed pages, PDFs of every story that I’d written and published in college were on the hijacked jump drive.

Being a pack rat was my saving grace. I had kept a hard copy of each volume and number of my college’s newspaper stashed away at my parent’s home back in Michigan. There are two Sterilite totes filled with those newspapers, as well as copies of the weekly alternative newspaper I interned at, stacked in my childhood closet. And even that got me thinking: Are those totes are waterproof? I sure hope so. If I lose those because of water damage or, God forbid, a fire, I will lose it.

However, all of the unpublished Word documents saved on the stolen computer that held my college-aged thoughts and ideas vanished, which is soul-crushing in many ways. I’ll never know the end of those old, unfinished sentences scattered over many saved pages with ambiguous names. And any future memoir recounting my college years will require long, deep thought from my wine-addled brain.

Though I’ve accepted the loss of those material items (okay, maybe I am still harboring a bit of a grudge) and have since replaced my computer, the experience made me re-think how I archive my written work. My personal archive is still a work in progress, but since the break in I’ve kept a paper trail of everything. I’ve also tried to leave a digital footprint of my work (published and unpublished) somewhere on the Internet.

My professionally published work is mostly digital, so I have a compiled list with links to those stories stowed on my email account. Perhaps, as an added safety measure, I should consider printing out each story with my byline. I also have hard copies of each magazine I've written professionally for in some of those totes at my parent's home. I am grateful they allow me to store so much of my stuff there. My current New York City apartment wouldn't allow such storage (and as Daniel Ford points out, the New York Public Library might not be enough).

My unpublished pieces now reside in a folder on my Google Drive. You can steal a woman's laptop and jump drive with precious content once, but steal again and all is not lost for the woman—unless Google is down. Does that mean that Google owns my life’s work? Maybe I should check into that.

I have half-filled notebooks in every room of my apartment scribed with ideas, half-written pieces, and some nonsense. It helps to look back on those lost thoughts, and often, it tailspins into a cohesive piece that I could eventually publish. After all, that’s how this post began.

A writer’s archive of work—published or unpublished—is a treasure allowing the writer to display the sparkling gems that earned great praise or even strike gold with the rediscovery of an old thought. It is sacred, and it should be treated as such.

Go forth a build your own treasure chest. Just make sure to put a LoJack on it.

For more essays, check out our full archive. 

From Protestors to Yuppies: How the Hippy Generation Sold Out and is Now Candy Crushing Our Country

From this to "corporations are people too!"

By Daniel Ford and Dave Pezza

I didn’t mean to poke the bear.

I usually get people going consciously. I’ve been in the mood to read/listen to something really rant-y and sassy all week, but I didn’t knowingly cause Dave Pezza to type so fast and angrily that his keyboard cracked from the pressure on Thursday morning. It started innocently enough. We were trading jokes back and forth about a variety of topics—free trade, the GM bailout, our generation—when I sent this reply:

“My father’s generation protested their brains out. We’ve got Occupy Wall Street.”

Well.

That’s really all Dave needed to get fired up.

I more or less sat back and watched as Dave proceeded to melt my computer screen. By the time you read this, he may or may not be protesting somewhere. You’ve been warned.

Dave Pezza Unleashed

Your father’s generation had something to give a shit about, we don’t.

However, they took all that away from us and then became the very people they were fighting against. Our generation has to fight a war of abstracts, not policy. And we don’t have the means to do so, mainly because we have been convinced that we are not capable of thinking and contributing unless we are 25, have had at least four years of college education, and have amassed enough debt to keep the banks happy. Last time I checked, an 18-year-old was a legal adult. Maybe we should spend less time protecting our “children” and more time culminating our young adults.

If you really consider the modern college system, it’s basically a system of generating money and a way to keep a generation of young adults financially dependent on the banking system. All the while, our ideas and experiences are degraded to juvenile notions when most of our parents’ generation was married with budding careers and children by the age of an average college senior.

(Daniel: “Um, is your keyboard on fire?” Dave: “Quite possibly.”)

I have a very strong and pissed off opinion about our parent’s generation. They have screwed up royally and refuse to admit to it. Don’t get me wrong, every generation has had hardships. But at least past generations recognized the impediments in their way. Ours is too distracted by bullshit like social media and inane, paltry complaints like Occupy Wall Street.

Just food for thought: The yuppies that our parent’s generation became are just now screwing us. Just one example is that we can’t own homes because they illegally decided that they were going to destroy the housing market. After working with a real-estate attorney for nine months and taking Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and US Bank to court for very obvious, but legally vague, widespread fraud, I have little to no respect for the opinions of older people who call my generation lazy. They could not have uttered a more ignorant statement in regards to the present economic conditions, and they are doing a grave injustice to the ideas that should have been passed down to them from their parents, who were one of the greatest generations of Americans in our short history.

(Daniel: “This is the best part of my day…and the saddest. My editor mind: ‘How can I compile this into a rant post?’” Dave: “Haha well I’m full of this shit, so if you need more, just poke the bear.” Daniel (to himself): “I’m willfully poking Dave with a stick at this point.”)

Point in case: NPR is running a profile on Candy Crush right now. There is a “gaming expert” literally explaining what Candy Crush is.

Holy damn.

I think, ultimately, people from the prior generation realized that getting money and improving their lives through the economic boom of the 1990s was far easier and more convenient than sticking to their ideals. Essentially, they got lazy. It just became way easier for them to stop giving a shit and ride out the system they thought they created. Little did they know that their whole "system" was just poising the country for the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression. They all just sat back and thought, "Wow look how right and justified we were."

Wrong.

For more essays, check out our full archive. 

Picking Up the Pen: Overcoming Your Fear and Becoming a Writer

By Robert Hilferty

About a month ago, my handsome buddy Sean Tuohy asked me if I’d be interested in contributing to Writer’s Bone. I told him I’d be delighted, as I’d had some ideas kicking around. And hey, why not?

I wrote my first piece titled “H.P. Lovecraft: Horror’s Racist Grandpa”. I wrote it and then told Sean I needed a week to look at it with fresh eyes to which he, being the kind gentleman that he is, obliged. I was proud that I was contributing to a website (on writing no less) and decided to tell a friend of mine about it. That’s when she tells me she’s read that blog post before. I’m not saying that I plagiarized the article (which you can read here), but rather, the idea had been done before and I found myself paralyzed. It’s not that I need to be a special snowflake or anything, but the fact that the core concept for my article down to the title was done and I felt as though it invalidated my whole piece.

H.P. Lovecraft: Master of Terror...and Racism

Now at this point you’re probably thinking to yourself, “I don’t really care about your pity party. Suck it up and move on.” However, I think my situation, much like my article idea, isn’t so unique. There are plenty of creative people who can’t get over their own fear to pick up a pen, or sit down at a keyboard, and write. I’m one of those people. Now before I get going, this isn’t going to spiral into some kind of self-help pitch, nor am I here to give you any solid tips on how to directly get over your own fear, rather I’m here to tell you my own story in hopes that it might help someone. I seriously doubt it, but fuck it.

Let’s do this thing.

I’ve always struggled with calling myself a writer and what being a writer really means to me. It’s something I’ve dealt with my whole life. I’ve talked to a lot of people on the subject and the opinions range from “We’re all writers” to “You’re not a writer until you’re a best-seller.” In many ways both of those extremes are right and in just as many ways they’re both assholes. Even though I’ve written my entire life—poetry, journals, short stories, tabletop RPGs, you name it—I’ve never called myself a writer. I always say that I’d like to be a writer and, despite a lifetime’s worth of writing, I don’t consider myself a “writer.” It’s just never been something I can comfortably self-identify with. It’s like some major title with powers and responsibility.

Fear is a mind killer and it can really consume you if you let it. I sat there staring at my article and felt like it didn’t mean a damn, terrified that I’d be called a hack or a sham for writing something so similar to what someone else wrote. The entire process stressed me out and it took a month to realize something monumental.

Who the fuck cares?

I’m the only one who actually gives a damn about this piece of shit article I’m writing and I’d rather I have something to point to and say, “I wrote this! Here it is on the Internet!” than have it sit on my computer.

Part of my problem that I’m a perfectionist and I feel as though everything I write must be gold. I’m overcoming that delusion slowly coming to terms with the fact that not everything I write is going to be special or perfect. This might be obvious to most, but it has taken me a long time to have it sink in. I’ve been writing my whole life so why not let other people see what it is I’ve been writing? There’s an excellent quote from Steve Johnson in “Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation” that helps me put things in perspective:

This quote has helped me pull through a lot of hesitation in my writing and helps me feel okay when I fail spectacularly. I’m going to fail as inevitably as the next marketing push for Xbox Kinect, and now, unlike Microsoft, I get to learn from it all.

Seriously, how did they think this would be a good idea?

So what’s the takeaway from all this? Is it to simply suck it up and get over it? Was this whole article just a big apology letter for taking so bloody long to contribute to the Bone? Well sure, but it’s a bit more nuanced than that.

Writing is hard. At least for me it is. I put my heart on the page and blood in the metaphorical ink. Writing is who I am. I still may not consider myself a writer, but it’s what I do and it means too much to me to quit now.

Just try and stop me.

Essays Archive

Say No to E-Books: Matt’s Rebuttal

A debate has been raging at Writer’s Bone HQ for most of the day. Before you read about Matt tearing Dave a new one, check out his original post, as well as Dave’s original response and his rebuttal, and today’s installment of The Boneyard. 

Throughout the history of mankind, there has been an evolution in the world of writing and reading. In ancient Egypt, people used hieroglyphs. When people decided that it took absolutely forever to draw those intricate shapes and caricatures on the walls, they started writing things down on papyrus. Then, the printing press was born, and so on and so forth.

As time and technology moves forward, so does the way of the written word. But why? For simplicity’s sake. If not, we would all still be chiseling shit on walls and driving television producers for HGTV nuts (Can you imagine “Love It or List It?” viewers fighting among themselves as to which interior design was better based on the stories written on the walls?).

Does simple mean the best method to do something? Absolutely not. Look at Twitter. Twitter is a news editor’s dream come true. But when used mainly for personal use (Basically anyone under the age of 18 or a celebrity), it’s the most obnoxious form of media available. It’s mainly 140 characters that no one will ever, ever need in their lifetimes.

E-books make reading more readily available for those who want it, simply. Gone are the days of waiting three to five business days because the book that you were trying to buy at Borders (RIP) is sold out or no longer in stock. A click of the button allows you to have that book almost immediately, without any hassle.

Amazon saw an opportunity to adapt to a changing medium with a proper business model that would ultimately lead to success. Nowhere does Amazon dictate how much a writer should be paid based on their writing. If anything, getting rid of production costs and focusing your book to be online only can only help your profit margin, don’t you think? Besides, the difference between paid content and free content is a completely different animal. It’s like comparing lions and caterpillars. Or, some other weird set of animals that have nothing else in common.

And the idea that reading a paperback book at a library or book store makes you a better person is wrong in more ways than not. Reading a paperback book isn’t going to make you talk to the cute girl that sits next to you on the bus. If anything, you’re going to be ignored no matter what you’re holding because she’s a bit busy looking on her iPhone anyways.

Some books need to be in print. The classics clearly cannot be fully enjoyed on a tablet, and that’s not even negotiable. But to think that there is no place for e-readers at all because they make us seem like a self-absorbed douche is asinine.

Be sure to check out:

• Say Yes to E-Books: Dave’s Rebuttal

• Say Yes to E-Books: Don’t Hate the Screen, Hate the Publishers!

• Say No to E-Books: For God’s Sake, Think of the Bookmarks!

• The Boneyard: The E-Book Debate Continues

Say Yes to E-Books: Dave’s Rebuttal

A debate has been raging at Writer’s Bone HQ for most of the day. Before you read Dave’s evisceration of Matt, check out his original post, as well as Matt’s original response, and today’s installment of The Boneyard. Be sure to also read Matt’s rebuttal. 

The advent of the Internet has changed a great many things. Many people no longer go to busy and infuriating malls and retails stores. You can watch almost any movie or television shows right on your tiny little handheld screen. You don't have to get the messy ink of a newspaper on your fingers, and the newspaper refreshes every hour bring you new, pertinent, and factual updates.

Right? Maybe. Or maybe the Internet has just made things easier, not better. Maybe digital content is just simpler, not more progressive. Change doesn't mean progress, it never has. The Internet is here to stay, clearly. But it doesn't mean we need to switch everything over to digital; in fact, that's probably the most damaging thing we can do. In my upcoming post, I'll break down one of the very many reasons why converting our whole lives to the digital world is killing some aspects of our culture: vinyl. Don't roll your eyes, because vinyl is coming back and coming back huge. Why? More on that to come.

Most people spend a large amount of time on the Internet, reading and watching. What are they reading and watching? If you commute to work, the next time you board your bus or train or subway, look at how many people are "plugged" in. Examine them for a second. Examine the guy on his 20th (!) session of “Temple Run.” Eavesdrop on how many people one person is texting and emailing and "communicating" with at one time. Reading teaches you how to be alone, but at least you know you're alone, you're not tricking yourself into thinking your not just looking at a phone.

E-books didn’t kill print, greed killed print. Do you honestly think Amazon gives two shits about the spread of human written word? Or did they just dump all their money into something new and cheap? And the Kindle was born. How does all this bode for writers?!

Not well. Like everything else on the Internet, it's all quantity over quality. Let's pump out eight stories in five hours with partial information rather than waiting five hours to get the facts right and publish something coherent. What's talent when you have 100 amateurs who are willing to be paid nothing to do the job one professional writer could do? Don't be sold something you don't need. Don't acquiesce because it's easier. Convenience has never been the right answer, for anything. Ever. Seriously, look it up on Wikipedia...

Maybe dragging yourself to the mall is a good thing. Maybe it teaches you how to tolerate people who don't share your beliefs or manners. Maybe that's how you spend time with a friend or parent. Maybe the girl sitting next to you sees the book cover of your book and, dare I say, a conversations starts. What if that downtime you spend on your phone or tablet lets you think more about the outside world, about the women with a cane who could use a seat more than you, and about the girl crying on the phone in the seat behind you would might have a much better day if you just offered her the tissue in your backpack instead of continuing to "deny" pictures of girls on Tinder. Literature has always been about holding a mirror to the world. But it's hard to be critical when you convince yourself the reflection looks so damn good.

The "if you can't beat them, join them," mentality has always been a defeatist one, and always will be.

Be sure to check out:

• Say No to E-Book's: Matt's Rebuttal
• Say Yes to E-Books: Don’t Hate the Screen, Hate the Publishers!
• Say No to E-Books: For God’s Sake, Think of the Bookmarks!
• The Boneyard: The E-Book Debate Continues

Say Yes to E-Books: Don’t Hate the Screen, Hate the Publishers!

Earlier, Dave Pezza expressed his impassioned beliefs on why e-books are lame. Here’s Matt DiVenere’s response. Also check out today's installment of The Boneyard for more debate.  

Let me preface this entire rant by saying I was a print journalist. I actually went to school for print journalism despite the entire world telling me that I was an idiot to get into a field that was going to be extinct before I turned 30. Therefore, what I’m going to say may upset and confuse you.

The whole idea of “hating technology” is the reason that the print industry is in such a shit world at this point. Instead of embracing it, print lovers tried to give technology a big middle finger and hoped that it didn’t come back to bite them. Well, it has.

Let’s take e-books, for example. It’s no shock that people are starting to trend away from reading hard copies of books and instead going right to the electronic form of this media.

In fact, last year was the first year ever that the average adult spent more time online than watching television during a normal day. According to a poll taken by eMarketer.com, adults over the age of 18 years old spent over five hours a day. That’s compared to the four and a half hours spent watching television, as well as the hour and a half spent listening to the radio.

Want to know how much time is spent reading print? Thirty-two minutes.

The amount of time the average adult spends reading print media (newspapers, magazines) has been dropping by six minutes each year since 2010, while time spent in the digital world has increased over two hours in that same time frame.

Still not convinced? Well, eMarketer broke down what it means to be a digital viewer. Smartphone use currently sits at one hour and seven minutes while the use of a tablet averages one hour and three minutes. That’s still nearly double the print viewership.

One can argue that the only reason that people are online more is to play Fruit Ninja, or check out their Instagram accounts. Whatever the case may be, it is very clear that we are in a digital age and anyone who believes otherwise probably waits to hear breaking news stories from little kids holding up newspapers, screaming “Extra, Extra!” on street corners (And if you do, I have so many questions).

There are those who shoot down the idea of e-books just because of what they represent: progress. No more paper cuts, no more old-book smell, and no more weekend visits to the library.

I get it. Reading a paperback book is an experience in itself. However, a good book should be able to transport you into a different world no matter what you read it on. If your book isn’t doing that for you, maybe you need to rethink what you’re reading.

Be sure to check out: 

• Say No to E-Books: For God’s Sake, Think of the Bookmarks!
• The Boneyard: The E-Book Debate Continues

Say No to E-Books: For God’s Sake, Think of the Bookmarks!

Dave Pezza ignited a Writer’s Bone debate with this rant against the e-book. Be sure to read Matt DiVenere’s argument in favor of e-books after this! 

Okay, I've been putting this off for too long.

E-books. It's time to fuck e-books right up.

Let's first address the elephant in the room: Amazon. Amazon has cornered the e-book business, buying up rights to classics. What worries me about this is a Nazi-era hording of texts by one company. Who knows what can happen to those rights now. Obviously, Amazon isn't burning books—in fact its publishing books in what it would have us believe is a medium more conducive to widespread readership. However, it still makes me shutter like the scene in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” where Indy dies inside as Germans torch books at a Hitler rally.

I suppose my more logical problem with e-readers and e-books is based in an American cultural plague of convenience. E-books don't add to the reading experience. Digital text on a screen adds no more to the experience that having a physical book in your hand. In fact, it diminishes it. You are unable to annotated or underline text without becoming aggravated with the tiny or nonexistent keyboard.

Bookmarks would be non-existent! If you are a true reader, bookmarks mean the world to you. They do for me. My current bookmark is thin piece of wood that has been smoothed and polished from the Monticello gift shop. "I cannot live without books" has been engraved into the wood! It's not like film, where visual effects have become better and the physical limits of film tape can be corrected by digital means. An e-reader simply simulates a book for the asinine convenience of being able to have a hundred books at your fingertips, which defeats the purpose of reading, in my opinion.

Read Jonathan Franzen's essay "Reader in Exile" from his essay collection How to Be Alone (an interesting book he wrote around the turn of the century that ended up forecasting everything that would occur culturally in the U.S. in the following 10 years). Franzen's thesis is that reading teaches how you how to be alone. It forces you to be comfortable with yourself alone in a room with just a book. I can't see how that is possibly with an e-book, especially with Wi-Fi, hundreds of applications, and all that poppy-cock (so glad I got to use that word).

And the carbon footprint argument is bullshit. Granted, print books should be more readily recycled, and cotton paper needs to drum up a better following, but what is the carbon footprint for making a Kindle? All that plastic, metal, and whatnot? The Kindle is manufactured in China in a factory I'm sure that pumps more pollution into the Chinese air.

I can hear it now: "Yeah, but you only buy one, and that's it." What about the Kindle Fire or whatever those marketing sell-outs call the second, third, and fourth generation Kindle models? What about Apple constantly upgrading its software, causing old models to be unable to operate with all the updated bells and whistles? Is all this worth the extreme convenience of being able to carry 100 books instead of one? All I know is that I can only read one word, in one sentence, in one paragraph, in one chapter, in one book at a time.

But maybe I'm just old fashion.

Be sure to check out:

• Say Yes to E-Books: Don’t Hate the Screen, Hate the Publishers!
• The Boneyard: The E-Book Debate Continues

I Rant, Therefore I Am: Why It’s Good to Unleash the Beast

Everyone feels like screaming like Homer Simpson from time to time.

By Daniel Ford

As Sean and the rest of the Writer’s Bone team knows, I like a good rant. I enjoy giving them, listening to them, writing them, etc.

Last night, I was trapped in a laundromat in Boston for a couple of hours. By trapped I mean I hadn’t done laundry in a month and needed to get it done and the washers and dryers in my building are so god-stinking awful that I was forced into the cold to seek laundry of a higher power. I used to live in Queens, N.Y., so I wasn’t prepared for the shady experience that followed.

For starters, this poor, stupid, and fat family felt the need to have a conversation with each other by shouting every word. Every word. They were never more than two steps away from each other. I heard them in my dreams that’s how loud they were. If that weren’t enough, the dryers worked as well as me blowing on my wet clothes after spending my day drinking coffee and eating chili. The worst part was this semi-homeless guy walks in, eats his dinner, watches 20 minutes of "The Voice" with me, drinks a 20ish-ounce Brisk Pink Lemonade, belches loudly, and audibly hikes up his pants a few times. He wasn’t doing laundry, so I figured he was waiting around to rob me of my freshly laundered clothes.

At one point, I had this email exchange with Sean:

Me: This is guy is 100% going to rob me for my clothes.

Sean: Break a chair leg off and use it as a weapon.

Me: I’m going to choke him out with a pair of underwear that I forgot to wash that I wore on a day I had Qdoba for lunch and fired 1,000 farts into at the urinal.

Sean: Wow, harsh. I love it.

The guy eventually manically waved at someone outside and then left. It’s worth repeating that he was not doing laundry. I know, I know. #FirstWorldProblems. But that’s what makes a rant so freeing. Whatever your problem is, it’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to anyone ever even though it’s really not. Why not scream, pout, and carry on in such a manner that you wind up on YouTube so the whole world can enjoy it?

Or better yet, write it down, send it to writerbone@gmail.com, and we’ll share it with our readers!

In the meantime, enjoy some of my favorite rants:

For more essays, check out our full archive. 

Remembering Voice-Over Guru Hal Douglas

Hal Douglas

By Sean Tuohy

The best part of going out to see a movie in a theater is watching the previews.

Forget the popcorn. Forget the theater. Forget the movie as well. The previews really make the experience. From the moment you sit down in the thinly cushioned seat and set your feet down on a floor that is waaaaaaay too sticky, you are waiting for the previews to begin. You know when the previews begin because the lights dim slightly, you hear music, and then a booming voice bellows:

“In a world…”

Yes! The movie preview voice! We have all tried to duplicate the voice ourselves at one point or another. But it was a voice like no other that you could only hear during a movie preview. The voice guided you through two and half minutes of flashing images and told you to get ready for an exciting time.

Sadly, that voice is no longer with us.

Hal Douglas, the famous voice-over actor, died at the age of 89.

Douglas’s dominant and impressive voice added chills and thrills to movie previews. His most famous line of all time was “In a world…” and Douglas’ voice made you believe you were really in the world he was describing. From “Lethal Weapon” to “Waterworld,” Douglas had the ability to transport you from your cheap movie house to a world filled with action, one liners, and dames with short skirts.

Movie theaters are places of magic and wonder; places for escape that make you feel safe because you leave the problems of the world at the door. Douglas’ voice was a welcoming and comforting sound to hear because it reminded you that you had a two-hour vacation from the real world. Even though he was never on screen, Hal Douglas had an incomparable influence on modern film.

In a world…without his voice just ain’t same.

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